


Son of the Forge

by Carrollesque



Category: Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Feel-good, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-02 12:00:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20275561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrollesque/pseuds/Carrollesque
Summary: A boy goes in search of his father. Hoping to turn this into a series of vignettes about Hephaestus and his relationships with other Lore Olympus characters.





	1. Son of the Forge

Eros was crying. Sniffling, really, curled up under his father’s workbench. His mother had warned him to stay out, that his father would be angry if he caught him there. He was a very busy man. He was working late. 

But he was always working late. The only sign he ever saw of his father was the gifts he sent. Beautiful jeweled necklaces for his mother, and for him, on his fifth birthday, a bow. His mother had been angry, saying he was too young to play with it, but he still practiced with it in secret.

He’d wanted to find his father, so he snuck into the factory. But it was loud, deafeningly loud, and there were giants everywhere, one eyed cyclopses stomping about, checking machinery, hammering, adjusting, shifting. And the heat, Gaia the heat! It was almost too hot to think straight. So he scurried under a workbench, and cried.

He heard his father before he saw him. The thump, thump, thump, of his cane as he walked across the factory floor. Eros held his breath and tried to stay very quiet. He should’ve listened to his mother. 

The thumping stopped, and the man stood there, for what felt like an eternity. Slowly, slowly though, be began to lower himself, down, down, until he was hunched down, kneeling with one leg against the floor. Eros curled in, trying to hide in the shadows.

“...Son?”

Hephaestus face was a thing to behold. Scarred, sweating, rivulets pouring over a bulging vein in his forehead, twisted in pain from the exertion. But there was no anger in his face. There was only concern, sadness, and a spark of joy in his fiery eyes. He reached one massive gloved hand towards the boy, but Eros recoiled with a squeak of fear.

He paused, “It’s alright, boy. You’re Eros, aren’t you? Will you come out and let your da’ have a look’it ya?” 

Eros shook his head emphatically. He shouldn’t have come here. This didn’t look anything like his father. It looked like a monster. 

But the monster only laughed. A warm, hearty timber, that turned into a few hacking coughs. “Ah, stubborn then, like yer’ ma, I’d imagine. Fine, fine. We’ll stay down ‘ere then, ‘til your good’un ready.” 

So Hephaestus sat, on the floor, crossing his mangled leg over the good one, smiling through the dimness at his son, a grin plastered on his face. 

Eros sniffled some more, some of the terror was draining away now. He looked, curiously, up at the monster. 

“Got the sniffles, do’ya?” The monster reached into his breast-pocket, “ ‘Ere then, take this.” He pulled out a small, folded handkerchief and held it out to the boy. Everything else about him was tarnished, covered in sweat and oil and grime. But this handkerchief, a tiny lavender thing, was clean. 

The boy took it and blew his nose, loudly, eliciting another laugh from the monster. He looked down at the handkerchief and noticed a letter H embroidered delicately in the corner.

“Yer ma made’t fer me, she did,” the monster said, his voice beaming with pride. 

The boy held the handkerchief back out, but Hephaustus shook his massive head, “Nah, you ‘old on to it for a spell. Ye’ look like ye’ might need it more’n me.”

Eros looked at the thing quizzically, and then mashed it into a pocket of his shorts, earning another laugh from Hephaestus. It was as if everything he did was massively entertaining to the monster. 

Eros looked again at the monster’s face, searching for some sign, some hint that this was his father. It didn’t seem like there was one to be had. At last, he gathered up his courage and asked the question he had come to ask.

“...Are you my father?”

Hephaestus smile faded a bit, “What d’ye mean?” 

Eros looked down at his hands, “My father sent me a bow. When I took it to show the other kids, they laughed and made fun of me. They said I didn’t have a father. That mom was a- was a- floozie, so I could be anyone’s son. And that’s worse than having no dad at all.”

Hephaestus tightened his grip, fingernails digging into the skin of his palm, and sparks flared behind the blackness in his eyes. But he forced down his anger. He looked at the boy with a sad smile.

“I didn’t know who me da’ was either,” he said softly. “But, yer ma is my wife, an’ I sent you that bow, so if ye’ want to be me son, then by Gaia, ye’ are.” 

The boy studied the man. He didn’t look much like a monster now. He rushed forward, tackling his father with a hug, bowling him over onto the ground, and eliciting another hearty laugh. 

“That’s the spirit! That’s me boy! Oof, your big!” He wrapped his hands around his son, lifting him into the air before cradling him under an arm. The boy pressed his face into his father’s beard. It was soft, and smelled like coal burned low. 

Hephaestus put one hand on his workbench, and hauled himself to his feet, grunting from the exertion. He had looked so broken, so bent, but now Eros could how strong his father really was. He lifted the boy up again, this time onto his shoulders, and shouted to the other workers in the forge, who had begun to gather near.

“This ‘ere’s my son, Eros! Son of Aphrodite! Son of the Forge! Me pride an’ me joy, now and forever! Let none doubt the fire in his veins!”


	2. Nephew of the Underworld

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hades shares a cigar and a bit of conversation with his favorite nephew.

Hephaestus sat, a cigar smouldering between his fingertips, in a smoke-filled sauna in the Underworld. He loved the Underworld, or at least didn’t mind it nearly as much as the other Olympians. There was a more elegant line to it’s towers of glass and steel, a few of which he’d even designed. The only problem was the damn cold. 

The god of the forge took a puff of the cigar and blew a long, broad trail of smoke to the basket of cinders sitting at the center of the sauna, causing them to flare and dance, stoked by the breath of fresh flame. 

“Turning up the heat on me nephew?,” his host, Hades, lord of the Underworld, lounged across the sauna, his own cigar smouldering softly in a nearby ashtray. Long rivulets of sweat cascaded down his blue skin, “How long’re we supposed to stay in here, again?”

“Long as it takes, uncle. Long as it takes.” 

Hades sighed, dropping his arms to his knees in mock-frustration, “The things I endure for my best client.”

“An’ yer favorite nephew,” Hephaestus added with a wink.

“So, what, you’re going to sweat me until I come down on the price of iron and copper?” Hades joked, “Why did you pay this particular visit, Heph?”

The forge god laughed, “If’n it’d work, unc. Any advantage in business, ye’d taught me that.” A mischievous grin crossed his broad face and he stroked a few loose embers out of his beard, “Nae, I come to investigate a certain rumor, a certain lord o’ the dead, abductin’ Demeter’s daughter.”

Hades groaned into his hands, “Gaia’s sake, does every god and goddess on Olympus know about that?” 

Hephaestus laughed, “Most likely, if e’en I heard of it. I’m not exactly head o’ the social committee meetings.” He cocked an eyebrow at his uncle, “Ye know, if ye wanted to give ‘er somethin’ special, ye’ could asked me. Stead’a giv’n her Mum’s hand-me-downs.” 

Hades shrugged, “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. And nothing happened. Despite what you may have heard.” He fixed his nephew with an icy look.

Hephaestus shrugged, “Aye, aye. I know yer not one for cavortin’ about. Last time ye asked me to make you somethin’ was for that river-nymph, wasn’t it? The red’un, with the legs an’ such? What ever happened with that ring I forged ye?”

Hades shifted his gaze awkwardly, “Uhm. Ah. Oh! Your glass is run short of ambrosia. Let me get that for you, nephew.” 

Heph chuckled, “If’n don’t mind if I do. Thank’ye unc.” Hades uncorked a fresh bottle and tipped the silvery liquid into the wooden cup Hephaestus drank from. “Tis a shame though. Judgin’ from what me boy told me, she’d a’ might be receptive to an ungentlemanly gesture ‘rtwo.”

The bottle clattered to the floor, “W-what? What’s that? What’d Eros tell you? Did Kor- Persephone say anything to him?”

The god of labors grinned, a bit malevolently, “Ah, I wouldn’t spread such rumors, o’ what youngsters talk about in confidence. Especially anythin’ about how charmin’ and dashing and kind a certain flower nymph finds a certain blue-skinned devil.”

Hades sank back against the sauna bench, dragging a hand across his face, “Don’t call her a flower nymph. She’s….” he stopped, and his expression turned sad, “She’s… a nice girl. Too young… too good for the likes of me.”

Hephaestus cocked an eyebrow at his uncle, “If ye want someone t’ agree with that sentiment, ye’ might have tried better company than the poster-lad for ‘marryin’ completely out of yer league.’ ”

Hades waved a hand dismissively, “That’s… different. You and Aphrodite are… unique in your circumstances.” He sighed, “We’re… too different.”

“Oh, aye? An’ me lovely wife and I aren’t?” Hephaestus prodded, “Nay. I tell ye true, unc. At the end o’ the day, if ye’ like the lass, than ye’ should court her. Difference be damned. Ye don’t forge a masterpiece by starin’ at lump o’ brass.”

“But I’d… I’d be taking so much away from her. Distracting her from her studies. Away from Olympus. From her mother. From the sun. There’s a reason no one wants to be queen of the Underworld, nephew.”

Hephaestus laid a meaty hand on his uncle’s shoulder, doing his best to stabilize it against the death god’s sweat-slick skin, “Yer truly a dork sometimes, uncle.”

Hades squinted at him, “W-what?”

He mimicked his uncle’s gloomy tone, “Talkin’ about ‘marriage’ an’ ‘queens’ an’ the sun.” Hephaestus laughed, “Wot’s the point in worryin’ about that, aye? I’m talkin’ about courtin. Ye know, writin’ that sappy poetry ye’ love so much, takin’ her to fancy dinners, drivin’ her about in those fancy cars I did make ye, buyin’ her expensive gifts from reputable forge gods!” he added with a wink, “Ye know! Havin’ fun! Do ye’ think you can manage that uncle? Have fun?”

Hades grinned down at his nephew, “Ah, now I see where your mercantile advantage in all this is. You didn’t forget everything I taught you.” He chucked the younger god in the arm with his fist. His smile softened and he let out a wistful sigh, “I could have fun just about anywhere, if it was with her.” 

“That’s the spirit!” Hephaestus cried, stretching and reaching for his cane before pulling himself to his feet. “Alright, unc, I’ve tortured ye’ long enough. Let’s go find us some more ambrosia.”

Hades practically leapt to his feet, eager to escape the sweltering sauna, “You know, I think you might be the only god on Olympus who isn’t opposed to this little tryst, nephew.”

Hephaestus shrugged, reaching for his cigar, “I wouldn’t be too sure’a that, uncle. An’ blast the rest, that twit Apollo first.”

Hades laughed, “He really is the worst, isn’t he?”

He clapped his nephew on the back, and together, the King of the Dead and the Lord of Fire walked into the cool air of the Underworld.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure I really nailed the characterization with this one, sorry about that. Comments / feedback are appreciated :)


End file.
